Mixed Messages
by CloveeD
Summary: A lot or too much can be said, but nothing or too much can be understood. Language is a bit of a croak like that. KuroganexFaixKurogane KuroFaiKuro
1. Chapter 1

**Mixed Messages**  
_  
by CloveeD_

Warnings: M/m Yaoi/slash, mature implications, some cussing. Un-beta'ed.  
A/N: Suddenly hit with a Tsubasa RC heat recently. This is a byproduct. Was listening to Akihiko Matsumoto's 'Tegami' for background music.  
Another source of inspiration was from re-reading Lost in Translation by Ontogenesis. It's too bad there hasn't been an update for years -  
that fic's approach to language is super fun. Here though I'm basing Fai and Kurogane's interactions on the lack of words Fai spoke during battle in the manga.

* * *

Neither of us are looking at each other. I look at the tips of his black hair, and he looks at somewhere above my ear. His breathing is loud, and mine are muffled against his taut skin. Kuro-rin's armor and skills must protect him well throughout the years - for a warrior who loves to fight, he has surprisingly little scars on his skin. My hand travels down his back, and finds only a small rise at the small of his back, a jagged line lying across the contours, pale in the dim lamp light.

His breath hitches for a millisecond, but it is loud against my ear, and hot against my skin. For all the traveling we have done, neither of us have had much leisure time like this to ourselves. But now, right now, he is all mine. Mine to touch, mine to have, mine to _breath against, breath with, and breath for_.

I wrote something to Ashura-ou once, on a slightly unsettling night during our journey. There was snow where we were, just a thin layer of it, incomparable to Celes, but just as light, and just as white. I felt (ironically) homesick. I felt lonely. My eyes were on the snow, but my mind was on the bodies that Ashura-ou had left behind on the cold, stony floor. One of those bodies had told me what a smile was. Another two of them smiled back when I did, and told me that they were thus happy.

But that was a long time ago, and I didn't finish writing what I wanted to say to my king anyways. They were some very disoriented words. I am still working on it. He was my king, is my king, and always will be my only king. Nothing in all the worlds and dimensions, not even himself, or what his hands have done, can change that. I miss him. I feel a dull ache in my chest for and because of his absence.

Kuro-rin mutters something against my head (sometimes I suspect that he enjoys having a mouthful of hair for reasons I cannot fathom), and I do not know what he has said. But his fingers (callouses and roughened skin of their pads) travel up my neck, and rest just beneath my face. Kuro-pon doesn't try to be gentle - he just is. Something about having had a gentle mother's touch. I am not certain what this means either.

He whispers something else to me (his language was just as curt as his personality sometimes), and then takes my breath away. I miss Ashura-ou, I love Ashura-ou, I would die for Ashura-ou. I wanted to die for Ashura-ou.

What I have here in my embrace, however, is more than enough to live for. Please touch me. _**Please touch me**. You make me want to live_.

With Mokona gone and our language barrier up, I have stopped speaking. This seems to (to my great amusement) make Kuro-pon a little anxious, especially lately. Perhaps because he is still constantly expecting to be able to jump up with a sword in hand and respond with a "I'll kill you right now!" when I next spew something airy and fun from my mouth. Perhaps I should say something soon to ease his worries.

"Kuro-pon." I tell him (his eyes widens slightly as though surprised to hear me talk), "Would you like to make love?"

My tent-mate looks momentarily confused, but one of his brow twitches, most likely having picked up the words 'Kuro-pon'. He says something back with his teeth bared (rather like a suspicious guard dog when one approaches them with something beyond their recognition). I continue on.

"I think I would like to make love to you, Kuro-pon. You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?" (for a moment there, Kuro-pon looks at me with a completely confused expression) "-I would like to stick my fingers into that mouth of yours, pry open your gritted jaw, and make you confused and hot as you will wet my fingers with saliva leaking down your jawline. And then I will suck the air right out of your mouth, make you pant, make you writhe, make you want, make you loud. My adorable, adorable Kuro-pon. Would you like that? Would you let me do all that to you, and then tell me that it's okay because you're tough enough to take all of me?"

He doesn't understand a word I have said, and continues to look at me in confusion for a moment longer, before jumping up in agitation when he realizes that I am continuously calling him Kuro-_pon_. He yells something (this time I am quite certain it's something along the lines of 'I will kill you you idiot mage' because he is taking out his sword) and then begins to chase me. I laugh and laugh and run and run - and he will never understand what I have just said.

My adorable, adorable big black puppy.

_I am scared. What if the Ashura-ou they speak of here is my Ashura-ou? _

_(Please touch me. Please come and touch me. **I don't want to forget to want to live**.)_

_

* * *

_(1/2)__

2/2 is already written. I will post it in a week. Constructive criticism is always welcomed.__


	2. Chapter 2

**Mixed Messages**

_by CloveeD_

Rating: PG-13  
Warnings: implied sexual content, bit of light cussing, un-beta'ed.  
Summary: Language is tricky that way. Kurogane x Fai x Kurogane.  
A/N: Kurogane is a bit less wordy than Fai. Though with more cussing.

* * *

The crazy wizard is touching me. His hand is cool.

"I can _hear_ your brain working. Stop it." I say to the wizard's wispy locks, because it is soft like fine silk, and I want to feel it against my lips. I touch his skin, his neck, and I cup his face in my palm. His jawline feels like delicate china, and I am tempted to drop my weight onto him in an ambush of sorts just to see if he would be crushed like one lying beneath me.

He is an idiot. (But he wouldn't be crushed. He's not delicate like china.)

I know what he is thinking.

I know he thinks I don't know what he is thinking. I know he would never want me to know what he is thinking, but I know what that chipped brain of his does to him, and because I know, I tolerate his stressed silence in Yasha-ou's camp. I let him hang off of my shoulders occasionally, I let him cling to me as he falls asleep at night, and I drag him out of the tent at least once a day to force him to stop thinking about so many things in silence. _I know he is scared._

If there is one thing I have learned about manipulators, is that they are the most afraid when there is no one around to manipulate.

As soon as we discovered the depth of our language barrier situation, I could see all of the mage's defenses thrown up tower-high. The longer we stayed, the less sounds he made. The less people he could interact with, the more he kept to himself, looking insecure. And because the mage is an idiot, by himself he thinks idiotic thoughts and doesn't know when to stop. He does not know the worth of his body (get you mind out of the gutter, asshole, I meant that in a platonic way.) He does not care for himself, only others - and that gentle indecisiveness will get him killed one day, if met with an ill-willed bastard. Possibly like the one he seems so afraid of, ever since he's arrived at that other place, and heard the name.

.

"I said - stop thinking, mage." I tell him. But he does not understand me. Figures he would not understand when I try to tell him something important.

I want to touch him and kiss him and _press_ him against the thatch that our army camp calls a bed and keep him there long enough to make him **_scream_** in honesty against my shoulder. I want him to stop thinking idiotic thoughts with that idiotic brain of his. (With the mage, I seem to be using the word idiotic a whole lot more than I do with anyone else.)

That look on his face, those slightly hunched shoulders, like the airy magic about the wizard had quieted down in fear, it all makes me antsy.

He probably thinks I would never do anything. Because he looks like he wants more of something, but never really does or say anything.

He runs a thumb over my bottom lip, and suddenly says, "Kuro-pon -" and then from his tone I can only guess that he is asking me a question. (That curly mother tongue of his sounds just as perverse as his personality.) But for all his silence recently, I wish he would speak more. _It would feel right_.

As though to answer my thoughts, he continues, and blabbers a load of foreign language to my face.

I don't understand a word the damned wizard says. I just think he wants to make love.

I am surprised that I think he wants to make love. Considering all the unspoken things we have between us, the moment I think this about him, the tension snapped like a cord pulled too tight. We've held onto it for so long.

_He wants to make love. He looks like he wants to make love. **I want to make love to him**._

But..."-If you **dare** to call out '_Kuro-pon_' or other junk like that when I do get a hold of you I am going to freaking keep you nailed to the freaking bed!"

I take out my sword, and ritualistically chase after the idiotic mage to make sure my warning is heeded before I do as he wishes.

* * *

(2/2)

Thar. Constructive criticism welcomed.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!


End file.
